Lawmakers Unveil Sprawling Spending Bill to Avoid Shutdown
The package also contains a bipartisan measure to overhaul the Electoral Count Act, the archaic statute at the heart of one of Mr. Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. And it includes plans intended to improve the nation’s response to future pandemics.
In their effort to secure at least 10 Republican votes to avoid a filibuster, Democrats were forced to abandon a number of priorities, including reviving lapsed expanded payments to most families with children, emergency aid to counter the ongoing toll of the coronavirus pandemic and a bid to lift the cap on the nation’s borrowing limit before an expected deadline next year.
Republicans, led by Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, and Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, stressed their success in negotiating more funding for the military, as some conservatives balked at the overall spending increase and lamented that they could have had a stronger negotiating hand had party leaders waited until they controlled the House majority.
“Republicans were not going to let our Democratic colleagues demand extra left-wing goodies in exchange for doing their job and funding our troops,” Mr. McConnell said on the Senate floor on Monday before the bill was released. “The president’s own party does not get to take our national defense hostage and demand rewards. I am grateful that our Democratic colleagues backed down and accepted our position.”
Democrats, who muscled through more than $2 trillion over unanimous Republican opposition earlier this congressional session, in turn emphasized their success in shoring up some health care, housing and food programs and protecting other domestic funding priorities, even as they acknowledged that several of their priorities had to be curtailed or left out.
“I’m confident that both sides will find things in it they can enthusiastically support,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, who on Monday noted that staff members had worked through the weekend to finalize the details. Using a legislative term for the bill, he added, “We all know the omnibus will be the best way to ensure that our kids, our veterans, our small businesses and our military continue to have full access to vital services and programs they depend on.”
The measure would also bar TikTok, which is a subsidiary of the Chinese company ByteDance, from government devices, though some federal agencies already ban the app.
Read the full article Here